Winter Parker Pages
 

Just wanted to give Mike and Sam a big thank you for another great issue of the Parker Pages. Kudos to all the folks who contributed to this issue, the stories are super. And a big shout out to Mr.Wheaton. The story about Dr. Norris and his relationship with George Bird Evans was a special read. I am a fan of GBE and have several of his book, though I haven't read them in a while. I knew he was friends with Dr. Norris, and that he received his prized "little Purdey" from the good doctor after his death, but I didn't know that Dr. Norris was also an author of upland books. Now i will have to try and track down his book for some fine reading when the weather turns nasty this winter.

Where has The Parker Pages been? I've had my The Remington Collector's Journal for over a week.

I can't abide GBE!! He so badly screwed up the Harold Money story in the book he edited of Nash Buckingham stories that I can't forgive the lack of due diligence.

I e had the Remington thing for almost two weeks I think .

Mail date is "tentatively" Nov 17th. Then Thanksgiving and USPS and whatever other forces. Got mine two days ago. Who really cares about other collectors publications, quality is worth waiting for. And I'm not even joking here. : )

I agree, Don, there were some really interesting reads in the PP. I was interested in the .410 Dupont gun which Shelly Gitman had upgraded to A1S.
SG guns have become my latest favorite topic, and this is yet another of the great Runge - Delgrego creations.

Still waiting with baited breath for mine Gary

Shelly indeed ran with the Parker "Big Dogs." One of his closest friends was Dr. Robert C. Snavely of Hagerstown MD, one of many "country doctors" who transitioned through the post-WW I years through the roaring '20s and into the Great Depression as a small town family physician. When times really got rough, patients unable to settle their bills often offered the good Dr. family guns in trade for services rendered. Over the years Snavely accumulated a fair number of Parker guns, some very high grade and unusual.

During the winter months when little or no competition shooting was held, once a month on Sunday Shelly would hop into his Corvette with 3 or 4 notable guns from his collection or recently acquired and make the 2-hr. drive down to Hagerstown to spend the day with Dr. Snavely and examine and talk about Parker Guns.

Attached is a photograph of the good Dr. along with another of a letter dated July 7, 1937 signed by Walter King, documenting the Parker Gun ordered by Annie Oakley. Dr. Snavely is shown holding that gun in the photograph. He died in 1985.

Blurry and hard to read, the letter states:

"Dear Sir:

We are advised by our Mr. Bracher that you are the owner of a Parker double gun, 102516, and that you would like what information and records we have relative to this gun.

Our records show that it is a 12/30 BH and was made for Annie Oakley and sold to her care of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in April, 1901. That is all the information we have relative to the gun and its sale. How long Miss Oakley or Mrs. Butler, as her married name was, shot this gun we do not know.

Very truly,
W.A. King
Parker Gun Works
Remington Arms Co."

My copy was in the PO box today but I'm not sure when it arrived as I'd not checked the mail all of last week .

I enoyed the Charles Norris article as well as the oe on the annual meeting and the one on this years Rock Mountain shoot . I'm sure Ill find others that intrest me its ust those three were I'd read here at the shop today .

For those who have not seen it, I think it has one of the best covers I've ever seen. As I get to edit the proof before it's in production I always get a "sneak peak" but it's always so much better in hand and I'm praying we NEVER go to a digital copy only. Bluck. You'll all like this one, I promise. Again, tremendous work by our editors.

Kevin, thanks for the Doctor Snavely tidbits. One of our members, a neighbor of mine now gone, owned some of Doctor Snavely's guns. His father was a close friend of Snavely's. The neighbor and I spent time talking about the old Parker days, pre PGCA, when we were teenagers and twenty somethings. He and I seemed to be the last Parker guys that remember Willie Eckmeier, a collector famous for destroying many great Parkers in the name of upgrading. Willie is the fellow who offered me a job when I got home from the Army in 1969. Willie knew very little about truth in advertising, so I had to decline his offer, but I may have lost a chance to purchase or inherit his International Harvester business.